Theoretical Physicist Learning Path By Gerard 't Hooft
Created By Gerard 't Hooft
210 Comments
54 Reviews
Pathway
Time:
500 Hours
Language:
English
Location:
Global
Media Formats:
articles
Cost:
free
Enrolled Students Count:
486
Dropped Out Students Count:
200
Completed Students Count:
286
Job Placement Rate:
unknown
Certificate:
none
Accredited By:
Pacing Type:
Self-Paced
Learning Methodology:
Self-paced education, Academic, Comprehensive
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Theoretical Physicist Learning Path By Gerard 't Hooft
It so often happens that I receive mail - well-intended but totally useless - by amateur physicists who believe to have solved the world. They believe this, only because they understand totally nothing about the real way problems are solved in Modern Physics. If you really want to contribute to our theoretical understanding of physical laws - and it is an exciting experience if you succeed! - there are many things you need to know. First of all, be serious about it. All necessary science courses are taught at Universities, so, naturally, the first thing you should do is have yourself admitted at a University and absorb everything you can. But what if you are still young, at School, and before being admitted at a University, you have to endure the childish anecdotes that they call science there? What if you are older, and you are not at all looking forward to join those noisy crowds of young students ?
Features
Main Modules
1
Languages
Key Concepts: English is a prerequisite. If you haven't mastered it yet, learn it. You must be able to read, write, speak and understand English, but you don't have to be perfect here. The lousy English used in this text is mine. That's enough. All publications are in English. Note the importance of being able to write in English. Sooner or later you will wish to publish your results. People must be able to read and understand your stuff.
2
Primary Mathematics
Key Concepts: Are you comfortable with numbers, adding, subtracting, square roots, etc.?
3
Classical Mechanics
Key Concepts: Static mechanics (forces, tension); hydrostatics. Newton's Laws. The elliptical orbits of planets. The many-body system. The action principle. Hamilton's equations. The Lagrangean. (Don't skip - extremely important!) The harmonic oscillator. The pendulum. Poisson's brackets. Wave equations. Liquids and gases. The Navier-Stokes equations. Viscosity and friction.
4
Optics
Key Concepts: fraction and reflection, lenses and mirrors, The telescope and the microscope, Introduction to wave propagation, Doppler effect, Huijgens' principle of wave superposition, Wave fronts, Caustics.
5
6
Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics
Key Concepts: The first, second and third laws of thermodynamics, The Boltzmann distribution, The Carnot cycle. Entropy. Heat engines., Phase transitions. Thermodynamical models, The Ising Model (postpone techniques to solve the 2-dimensional Ising Model to later), Planck's radiation law (as a prelude to Quantum Mechanics)
7
Electronics
Key Concepts: Ohm's law, capacitors, inductors, using complex numbers to calculate their effectsو Transistors, diodes (how these actually work comes later).
8
Electromagnetism
Key Concepts: Maxwell's Theory for electromagnetism, homogeneous and inhomogeneous, Maxwell's laws in a medium. Boundaries. Solving the equations in: vacumm and homogeneous medium (electromagnetic waves), in a box (wave guides), at boundaries (fraction and reflection), The vector potential and gauge invariance (extremely important), emission and absorption on EM waves (antenna), light scattering against objects.
9
Computational Physics
Key Concepts: Even the pure sang theorist may be interested in some aspects of Computational physics.
10
Quantum Mechanics (Non-relativistic)
Key Concepts: Bohr's atom, DeBroglie's relations (Energy-frequency, momentum-wave number), Schr�dinger's equation (with electric potential and magnetic field)., Ehrenfest's theorem., A particle in a box., The hydrogen atom, solved systematically. The Zeeman effect.Stark effect., The quantum harmonic oscillator., Operators: energy, momentum, angular momentum, creation and annihilation operators., Their commutation rules., Introduction to quantum mechanical scattering. The S-matrix. Radio-active decay.
11
Atoms and Molecules
Key Concepts: Chemical binding, Orbitals, Atomic and molecular spectra, Emission and absorption of light. Quantum selection rules, Magnetic moments., duration:
12
Solid State Physics
Key Concepts: Crystal groups, Bragg reflection, Dielectric and diamagnetic constants, Bloch spectra, Fermi level, Conductors, semiconductors and insulators, Specific heat, Electrons and holes, The transistor, Supraconductivity, Hall effect.
13
Nuclear Physics
Key Concepts: Isotopes, Radio-activity, Fission and fusion, Droplet model, Nuclear quantum numbers, Magic nuclei, Isospin, Yukawa theory
14
Plasma physics:
Key Concepts: magneto-hydrodynamics, Alfv�n waves
15
Advanced Mathematics
Key Concepts: Group theory, and the linear representations of groups, Lie group theory, Vectors and tensors, More techniques to solve (partial) differential and integral equations, Extremum principle and approximation techniques based on that, Difference equations, Generating functions, Hilbert space, Introduction to the functional integral
16
Special Relativity
Key Concepts: The Lorentz transformation, Lorentz contraction, time dilatation, E = mc2, 4-vectors and 4-tensors, Transformation rules for the Maxwell field, Relativistic Doppler effect
17
Advanced Quantum Mechanics
Key Concepts: Hilbert space, Atomic transitions, Emission and absorption of light, Stimulated emission, Density matrix, Interpretation of QM, The Bell inequalities, Towards relativistic QM: The Dirac equation, finestructure, Electrons and positrons, BCS theory for supraconductivity, Quantum Hall effect, Advanced scattering theory, Dispersion relations, Perturbation expansion, WKB approximation, Extremum principle, Bose-Einstein condensation, Superliquid helium
18
Phenomenology
subatomic particles (mesons, baryons, photons, leptons, quarks) and cosmic rays; property of materials and chemistry; nuclear isotopes; phase transitions; astrophysics (planetary system, stars, galaxies, red shifts, supernovae); cosmology (cosmological models, inflationary universe theories, microwave background radiation); detection techniques
19
General Relativity
Key Concepts: The metric tensor, Space-time curvature, Einstein's gravity equation, The Schwarzschild black hole, Reissner-Nordstr�m black hole, Periastron shift, Gravitational lensing, Cosmological models, Gravitational radiation
20
Quantum Field Theory
Classical fields: Scalar, Dirac-spinor, Yang-Mills vector fields.Interactions, perturbation expansion. Spontaneous symmetry breaking, Goldstone mode, Higgs mechanism.
21
Superstring Theory
Comments
MM DP
about 3 years ago
great
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